hello to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm john king in washington. this is cnn's continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. another global benchmark quickly approaching. 2.5 million confirmed cases worldwide. the french prime minister today saying his country will not return to normal for a long time. vladimir putin says mitigation is working but the russia coronavirus peak still lies ahead. and 100,000 defied lockdown orders in bangladesh to mourn sparking fears of a devastating potential outbreak there. the united states' case count there sits at just over 760,000, deaths at 40,000. other hot spots still on the down side of the curve. others still surging. even in new york where the virus

is trending down, there is some cautions. the mayor today announcing all parades, concerts, rallies and large gatherings planned for june -- june -- are now canceled. looking across the landscape, zero states at this hour meet the president's criteria to reopen the country. testing is a big piece of those white house reopen guidelines. governors complain of a giant testing gap between capacity and capability. they say that means until it is closed, they are just not ready for a reopening. there are a few governors, though, easing restrictions, creating tension with local officials and public health experts. we also see this debate in protests, and the presidents keep praising those pushing -- you see them right there -- to get their governors to open up. yet the president's top expert says just this morning a rush to reopen would be a giant mistake. >> but unless we get the virus under control, the real recovery economically is not going to happen. so what you do if you jump the

gun and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you're going to set yourself back. so as painful as it is to go by the careful guidelines of gradually phasing into a reopening, it's going to backfire. >> the president, if you've been listening, for weeks bragging about testing, insisting there are very few issues. last night, though, the president did put the onus to test on governors, calling it a local problem. yet at the same time he also announced he's using the national defense protection act to propel the company to make more swabs used in that sensitive coronavirus diagnostics. with me to share his expertise and insights, chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta. sanjay, thank you for being here to start the hour with us. i'm doing this 18 to 20 hours a day just like you are, and it is so easy to get confused. the president says all is well, the governor says no, it's not. there is this test, that test, some of them are proven, some

are not. where are we? >> the practicality of someone who needs to be tested and that person being able to go through the process getting a test and getting the results of that test is still a holdup in places. it doesn't mean that capacity to do these tests hasn't increased, it has increased in places. that means there's labs and in places technicians that are plentiful in order to be able to run the test. the problem is there are many steps before you actually get to the capacity issue. you need to have the swabs, for example. people are learning more about swabs than they ever thought they would. you have to have the medium in which to transport the swab to the testing facility. you have to have certain reagents that then pull the genetic material off the swab, then the testing can take place. the point is every single step of the way, you have to make sure you have enough of these supplies, and some of those, john, are just in short supply. when i talked to public health officials at the state level, that is the picture that some describe, where they say that, yes, we have public health labs,

we have commercial labs, we have university labs. they've all really stepped up. but we don't have enough of x, y or z in order to get it done, and that's why i think there is this conflict between the states and the feds, the states saying we can't compel this company out of a town of 1500 people in maine to make more swabs. we can't ask them to do that. we can't ask other companies to start making these swabs. we're a state. the federal government has to be able to step in and do that. i think that's the tension that i'm hearing, john. >> that is the tension. i just want to listen here to the former cdc director tom frieden who says, to your point, this is a national pandemic. we are in uncharted waters. yes, states normally would pick up the slack here, but in this case tom frieden says, no, washington has to help. >> it is absolutely the federal government's responsibility. currently we're doing in this country less than 150,000 tests a day. earlier today we released a report and we calculated quite

simply if we were just testing the highest priority people and nobody else, we'd need about three times as many tests. and since we're also testing some lower priority people, we're going to need more than that. if we try the test really extensively, it would be 10, 20 times that. >> there's just no question, sanjay, when you hear that that, look, there's been progress. we need to give people grace. there is human error. they're trying to ramp all this up. but if you listen to that, we're nowhere even close as the president keeps nudging governors, reopen and reopen now. >> yeah, i was really struck by that as well. so 150,000 tests a day a lot, but we need to be doing closer to 500 just to test the people who are health care workers, front line workers, people who have symptoms. if we want to get to the point where we're doing surveillance out in the community, it could be a million, even more than that, tests a day that would need to be done. john, one way i thought about it

recently with some of my medical colleagues is more along the lines of diabetes blood sugar testing. this isn't a blood borne thing, this is a respiratory thing, so you would be testing swabs, saliva, things like that. but diabetics test their blood sugar many times a day. they've gotten good at doing that. might we at some period of time have to test ourselves and have the facilities and the capacity to be able to do that even at home, john. that's the sort of picture we should be angling for as opposed to where we are right now. >> amen, but that's a conversation that the people who have the power to do something about it should have been having, i think, weeks and weeks and weeks ago, but it's being forced upon them now, a little late in the game, many would argue. dr. gupta, thank you for your help and insights. the governor is giving some stores the green light to reopen

business. there is a fight brewing between some mayors in california saying it's wrong to ease restrictions. this map shows when states should be ready to reopen given the best information right now. for south carolina, that date is late may, a month from now. not today. cnn national correspondent natasha chen is in north carolina. the governor deciding to push the envelope here. >> reporter: yeah, we're still waiting for official confirmation, john, from his office, but we know from the post and courier newspaper here in south carolina that he is intending to announce today the reopening tomorrow of certain businesses that sell clothing, jewelry, furniture, but still limiting the number of people who can be in those stores at any given time. we're also talking about the potential that he's going to reopen public access to beaches, rivers and lakes. already on friday there was an order to reopen boat docks. i just got off the phone with representative joe cunningham's

office. joe cunningham represents the district near charleston with those beach towns, and they said that over the weekend since that order, there were a lot of people gathered trying to take their boats out, and even before the beaches closed several weeks ago, they observed large crowds of people from inland from the state or out of state, and so they're concerned about what would happen when those beaches reopened. you mentioned those beach towns. several of them got together and agree that they're still going to restrict access no matter what the governor says to just residents on the beaches if those reopen. and so there is concern right now to how the social distancing would be enforced without putting law enforcement at risk right now, john. >> natasha chen for us in columbia. appreciate that live report. this is one of the states as these governors go forward with this, like it or not, it will give us a test case. we'll watch and see how these things play out. natasha, thank you so much for that important reporting. with me, medical analyst saline

a gander. thank you so much for being here. i want to get as an expert, when you see these things playing out, not every model is correct, but the model says end of may. the governor of south carolina says i'm going to try this -- it's limited, but i'm going to try this in the end of april. a, wise? and b, i guess we will quickly learn, won't we? >> yeah, it does seem premature to be reopening. so there is two real metrics by which we can decide whether a state or other local region is really ready to reopen, and it's really about is there public health preparedness and is their health system preparedness. on the health system side, can you do the contact tracing, can you do the testing of people that have symptoms, isolate people and test those who may

have been exposed. as we saw before some of these social distancing measures were put into place, many hospitals in some of the hardest hit areas were really overwhelmed and that put not only patients at increased risk at dying from covid but also health care workers at increased risk for contracting the disease. so, really, that's what we're talking about, is making sure that we're ready on both fronts before we lift social distancing measures. i think the other thing to remember is that no matter what, we're going to see an increase in transmission when we lift social distancing measures. it's really a question of how prepared are you to handle that resurgence in transmission. >> how prepared are you, how prepared is the psychology. people start to reopen again and you think, okay, my governor says i can go out. there's a psychological impact. you mentioned can the hospital system, can the health care system handle it? are you at a point where you're stabilized so if you get more you can handle it. we don't really know -- this is

the thing that fascinates me. we don't really know how bad it could be because we still don't have a sense of how many people are walking around asymptomatic, correct? who still have or had, and we don't know if they had and processed it thinking they had a minor cold or something, whether they're immune for a month, six months, forever? >> that's right, we still don't know what percentage of people may have had it without knowing it. it's probably somewhere in the ballpark of 25 to 40%, but that's a big range. and then there's been talk of these antibody tests. to be clear, antibody tests are not really about diagnosing somebody who is sick now, it's about looking backwards to see if they may have had it before. unfortunately, not all antibody tests are created equal. you have some that have been developed by state and public health labs, academic centers that seem to be performing pretty well, but the fda has really opened the floodgates to any number of tests, including some from china, that have already shown to have issues. it's sort of like ordering

something on amazon. it looks great online when you order it, but when you receive it, how often do you find something made in china that you end up throwing in the trash because it's not what you thought you were getting? unfortunately, all these new antibody tests that are coming out fall into that category of really not performing up to what the promises are. >> it's a great point because you hear, and i think the president is way too casual when he talks about this at the white house briefing, saying the fda approved this, i saw this study there, i saw this there. some of them we hope will bring us hope. a lot of them are in early stages or will turn out to be a dead end. i want to get your view on this, because when i was talking to dr. sanjay gupta, he had with him tom frieden, the former cdc direct director, saying we need more testing. they say at least triple testing from where we are currently. as you know, there are a lot of people out there who say, well, new york didn't need all those beds, new york didn't need all those ventilators.

the public health experts are grossly exaggerating. this is not such a threat. some are protesting, some are being told by their governor it's safe to go out and do a little more. help us understand why the testing piece is so critical. >> if you want to have accurate predictions about what the needs are, whether it's health care system needs or other needs, you really need to have a better handle on the actual numbers. so testing is really at the center of that. testing is also what tells you where the disease has been, where the disease is going. we also need to get a better handle on whether these antibody tests actually mean somebody is immune or not, and we don't have a firm answer to that yet. so it would be dangerous to say you're safe to go back to work and you don't have to mask up on the basis of an antibody test because we just don't know that's what that demonstrates right now. you know, i think there is just a lot of unknowns, still. >> a lot of unknowns and some people try to fill that in with their own theories not

necessarily based in science. dr. celine gounder, thank you very much. a crossroads moment right now. up next why the president is focused on shifrti inshifting t criticism to others. this is our home.

we've never seen it look quite like this, but there's no mistaking it. and it's our job to protect it... because the best people to fight for our communities are those within them. so, if you've just bought a volkswagen or were thinking of buying sometime soon,

we're here to help with the community driven promise.

ibut you're not alone. apart for a bit, we're automatically refunding our customers a portion of their personal auto premiums. learn more at libertymutual.com/covid-19. [ piano playing ] to ewhether you'reting these uncaring for your. family at home or those at work, principal is by your side. we're working hard to answer your questions. like helping you understand what the recently passed economic package can mean for you. we're more than a financial company. we're a "together we can get through anything" company. now, more than ever.

president trump's go-to in this time of crisis is anger and confrontation. new attacks on house speaker nancy pelosi, on governors, and on those who dare raise questions about his coronavirus response. new numbers show most americans are not impressed at the moment with their president. 52% disapprove of how the president is handling this pandemic. 44% approve. it also includes damning numbers for the president on the

question of trust. look here. only 36% of americans trust what they hear from the president. only 36%. 69% trust the cdc. 66% trust their governor. and 60% trust top infectious disease expert dr. anthony fauci. the slipping poll numbers are part of the president's anger. he's also mad at even business and political allies who keep telling him the reopening process is going to take months. >> he said we did a phenomenal job. so report accurately because you are one of the most inaccurate reporters. you don't have the brains you were born with. you should be praising the people who have done a good job. i got here with the most impressed health treatment. they did say abraham lincoln had bad treatment, too. i told you we inherited a lot of garbage. they had tests that were no good. you and the obama administration were duped for years because china was ripping off this country. i'm not a fan of mitt romney.

>> john harwood is with us today covering the white house. john, you saw the president over the weekend and in recent days. yeah, he's in a bit of a mood. >> reporter: he's in a mood, john. he's getting a very harsh judgment from governors who are criticizing his performance, from those of us in the press who are covering the president's performance, and from those poll numbers. there is another one you didn't mention which is the pugh research center last week showed two-thirds of the american people think he's been too late on the coronavirus, and i think he's struggling under the pressure of that harsh judgment. so he spent a long time at that briefing yesterday plaintively pleading with the american people that he's done a good job. he also decided to give some comfort to those protesters who were out in various states protesting against policies that

he himself has called for. >> reporter: are you concerned that your talk about liberation in the second amendment, are you inciting violence among the people? >> i've seen the interviews. these are great people. they call it cabin fever, you've heard the term? they've got cabin fever. they want to get back. they want their life back. their life was taken away from them. >> reporter: and think of the leadership contrast here, john. andrew cuomo, the governor of new york who we're going to hear from in a few minutes, he said to the people, if you're mad about being shut down, blame me. i'm the one who is doing it for the greater good. president trump doesn't seem to have the internal strength and confidence to do that, so when he gets some heat from people who are impatient, he says, oh, blame the governor. and people can see the difference in their judgment of leadership. andrew cuomo's ratings are in the high 70s, president trump's

in the mid-40s. >> blame the governor for putting in place the cdc and the president's stay at home social distancing guidelines. appreciate it, john. the president also has the world health organization in its crosshairs. he froze funding for the group after accusing them for failing to hold china to a count. but now reporting that a dozen physicians and health care experts who were working at the headquarters in geneva when the coronavirus first occurred in china, they failed to report the outbreak to the trump administration. alex marquardt is following this for us. alex, can they see it happening? do they deny it? >> reporter: they are admitting there were a number of americans that were working at the w.h.o. in geneva. in fact, the spokesman for the department of health and human services did confirm there were some 17 american medical experts working there, 16 of which, so all but one, working for the cdc

detailed to the w.h.o. as they have been for years. what the administration through the department of health and human sfervices is disputing tht people said there would be some sort of communication from the w.h.o. they're seeing the leadership of the w.h.o. didn't include americans and the americans there were not reporting with transparency that the trump administration has accused the w.h.o. of not offering. we should note, john, the "washington post" is also reporting there were a number of senior trump-appointed health officials who were consulting with the w.h.o., so that does fly in the face of this notion that the president was pushing that they weren't getting the communication they needed from the w.h.o. and that they were covering up for china. now, dr. deborah birx, who as you know is the coordinator for the coronavirus task force, she

was asked yesterday about the w.h.o. and transparency. this is what she had to say. >> you know, i think early on when you go back -- and again, i watch epidemics around the world, and the level of transparency and communication that you need, you have to overcommunicate. you have to communicate even the small nuances. >> reporter: so birx there saying that you have to overcommunicate. she did point the finger at china saying the onus is on the first country to be affected to report what is going on and be overly transparent. but john, she did say th this overtransparency in alerts need to be down the road as soon as this country gets over it. john? more concerns in the food chain. iowans saw their biggest one-day

spike in new coronavirus cases. two-thirds of those newly infected work in the meat packing and processing industry. iowa is not alone, not by a long shot. there are incidents all across the country in incidents of coronavirus in food supply. what do we know about these spikes across the country? >> reporter: and that's it, john, it happens across the entire country here. in iowa, some of that spike may be attributed to an increase of targeted testing of these meat packing plant workers. some of it is simply the length of time that it takes this virus to sometimes move through these large groups of people who, up until very recently, were working shoulder to shoulder, long, hard hours in these meat processing plants. if you take a look, there are roughly a dozen plants across the country that have been shut down as a direct result of the coronavirus. four of them were in pennsylvania. now, one of those, cti, reopened

and is moving at a slower pace with a smaller staff as of today. i spoke with the union leaders and they think that the other three plants are set to begin their reopening process today. this is after a deep cleaning, having to meet certain standards, implementing different safety features and things like that. there is also the concern, john, of the plants that are continuing to operate even with some of these outbreaks. waterloo, iowa where local officials, john, have requested tyson shut down. at this point tyson says it is simply adding features and safety measures to mitigate the spread of the virus. >> dianne gallagher, thanks again. it's critical to be on top of this. watching this not only for the food chain issues, the people who are working now are getting sick. the president says it's time to send people back to work. safety needs to be paramount. still a few glitches as white house and congress try to

cut a deal for small businesses. that connects you to technology and each other. that's built with and for first responders. firstnet. the only officially authorized wireless network for first responders. because putting you first is our job. that's ensure max protein, with high protein and 1 gram sugar.

it's a sit-up, banana! bend at the waist! i'm tryin'! keep it up. you'll get there. whoa-hoa-hoa! 30 grams of protein, and one gram of sugar. ensure max protein. and let me tell you something, rodeo... i wouldn't be here if i thought reverse mortgages took advantage of any american senior, or worse, that it was some way to take your home. it's just a loan designed for older homeowners, and, it's helped over a million americans. a reverse mortgage loan isn't some kind of trick to take your home. it's a loan, like any other. big difference is how you pay it back.

find out how reverse mortgages really work with aag's free, no-obligation reverse mortgage guide. eliminate monthly mortgage payments, pay bills, medical costs, and more. call now and get your free info kit. other mortgages are paid each month, but with a reverse mortgage, you can pay whatever you can, when it works for you, or, you can wait, and pay it off in one lump sum when you leave your home. discover the option that's best for you. call today and find out more in aag's free, no-obligation reverse mortgage loan guide. access tax-free cash and stay in the home you love. you've probably been investing in your home for years... making monthly mortgage payments... doing the right thing... and it's become your family's heart and soul... well, that investment can give you tax-free cash just when you need it. learn how homeowners are strategically using a reverse mortgage loan to cover expenses, pay for healthcare,

preserve your portfolio, and so much more. look, reverse mortgages aren't for everyone but i think i've been 'round long enough to know what's what. i'm proud to be a part of aag, i trust 'em, i think you can too. trust aag for the best reverse mortgage solutions. so you can... retire better.

right now the white house and democrats said to be on the verge of delivering a deal of an

$18 billion package. but the bulk of the cash is for funding that ran out last week. phil mattingly is following the development. phil, they've been saying for 21-plus hours, we're close, close, close. what's the hangup? >> details. john, you know as well as anybody from covering this stuff the details on packages like this are extraordinarily important. the top lines are for the most part agreed to. more than $300 billion more money for that program that lapsed last week. there is expected to be $17 billion to go to hospitals, $25 billion for testing programs as well. it should have some type of cutout for small businesses and underutilized institutions as well. but the details for two items in particular, where and how the hospital money goes out, where

and how the testing money goes out have been the primary piece of the holdups in the last 24 hours. staff was there late last night working on this, they're back working on it this morning. everybody knows they'll get there eventually. the problem is when there are this many details still hanging out there, people need the small business money now. i think these negotiations have gone on far longer than anybody wanted them to. lawmakers and administration officials hope they're closing the door or coming close to ending these negotiations with a good outcome, but they're not quite there yet, john. >> phil, let me ask a follow-up question. you say money for hospitals, money for testing, vital money for the small business program. listen here, the mayors of the two largest cities in the united states say, what about us? i'm sorry, we don't have that sound. mayor garcetti of los angeles, mayor de blasio of new york saying, we're left high and dry, we can't function. governors say the same thing. the democrats started this by saying let's get aid to states and cities. they've backed off. is there a promise from the administration that if we cut a

deal here, that will be front and center next time? >> reporter: there is a promise from the administration that will be part of the next bill. keep in mind this was an emergency effort coming together because the small business program ran out of money so fast. but democrats have made clear, and i'm told they're not done pushing on this. they're still trying to get state and local government furndifurnd i -- funding into this package, it's just not there yet. they differ how they want to mane doled out. when the united states congress is out of the town and you need basically unanimous support in the united states senate to be able to move forward, you try to take those items off the table, at least that's been the premise of the administration. when you say we need 500 bill$5 billion on a bipartisan basis, when you have mayors saying we have budget shortfalls right

now. the government knows everybody needs money. the question is how much, when will they get it and how will that money be delivered? that's the biggest crux of the disagreements right now, that's where they've tried to shift it out of this package and into the next one. >> sorry, phil, i have to go to governor andrew cuomo starting his briefing. >> that was in total and california. these are the hospitalization numbers for today. a tick down from yesterday but a slight tick statistically relevant. the question for us is are we past the apex. we have had a number of days that have seen a reduction, reductions across the board. hospitals also say anecdotally that they have less patients in their emergency room, which, again, perspective. the emergency rooms were way over capacity.

it was chaotic, it was hellish, and the emergency rooms are still at or over capacity. but it's better than it was. the total change in hospitalizations, you see that it's been going down. the three-day average of hospitalizations is going down. the number of intubations is down again. that is great news. not down as much as yesterday, but down. number of new people coming in the door with covid diagnosis is, again, just about flat with yesterday. this was reporting over a weekend. sometimes the weekend reporting can get a little funky because it's saturday and sunday, and they have less of a staff. the reporting may not be as accurate, but it's basically flat. the question that we initially dealt with at the beginning of

this as the numbers were going up, the question was how long until we reach the top of the mountain, right? every day it was the numbers higher, the numbers higher, the numbers higher, the numbers higher. the question was when do you get to the top? how high can it go? then we get to the top, the top turns out not to be a peak. it turns out to be a plateau and then we're on the plateau and it's basically flat. then the question was how long are we going to be on this plateau? how long, how wide is the plateau? the question now is, assuming we're off the plateau and we're seeing a dissent, which the numbers would suggest we're seeing a dissent, the question is now how long is the dissent and how steep is the dissent? and nobody knows. just the way nobody knew how long the ac srk krrkascent was, tell you how long the descent

is. how fast does it come down where we have a lower number that we have some confidence that we have a margin of error? does it take two weeks to come down? some projections say that. does it take a month? some projections say that. again, the projections are nice, but i wouldn't bet the farm on them. and i don't even have a farm. worse news is the number of lives lost, that number is still horrifically high. if you're looking for the optimist's view, it's not as bad as it was, but 478 new yorkers died yesterday from this terrible virus. everyone is anxious to reopen, everyone is anxious to get back to work. so am i.

question is, what does that mean? how do we do it? when do we do it? nobody disagrees that we want to get out of the situation. nobody. you don't need protests to convince anyone in this country that we have to get back to work and we have to get the economy going and we have to get out of our homes. nobody. the question is going to become how, when, how fast, and what do we mean in terms of reopening? with reopening, i want to set the bar higher, meaning the question shouldn't be when do we reopen and what do we reopen? the question should be, let's use this situation, this crisis, this time to actually learn the lesso lessons, value from the reflection and let's reimagine what we want society to be.

and since we are going to have to go through all of this and it's not going to be fast, let's at least make this a moment that when we look back, we can say, wow. we went through hell, but look at all the lessons we learned and look how much better we made this place from this incident, right? we went through 9/11. we were hellish what we had to rebuild. but we were smart enough to say, how do we build back better? you look at downtown manhattan now, it is better than it was before 9/11. you look at the security procedures that this nation has, we're better than we were before 9/11. we had superstorm sandy here on long island. terrible. terrible. thousands of people's homes gone. long island is better today for having gone through superstorm sandy. okay. how do we use this situation and

stop saying reopen but reimagine and improve and build back better. and you can ask this question on any level. how do we have a better transportation system, a better housing system, better public safety system, better health system, better social equity, better use of technology? people who are working from home, a lot of them are saying, you know what, i should have been doing this all along. you have telemedicine that we've been very slow on. why was everybody going to a doctor's office all that time? why didn't you do it using technology? why haven't we been using more technology for education? why haven't we incorporated so many of these lessons? well, because change is hard and people are slow. now is the time to do it. and that's what we're doing in a multi-state region aal coalitio and that's very important because that is the smartest way to do it. on a more granular level here in new york, we're going to have a

reimagined task force that focuses primarily on downstate new york, which has been the most affected area, and led by the state with those local elected officials. but let's get the best housing experts, let's get the best transportation experts, and let's use this as a moment to really plan change that we could normally never do unless you had this situation. in the meantime, do no harm. and this is my number one concern every day. do no harm. don't let that infection rate go up, and that's testing. and that is watching the dial, right? we know what's going to happen now. the weather is going to warm, people are a little more relaxed because they see the numbers coming down, and we know human

behavior, right? they want to get out of the house, they want to be more active. there is a sanity quotient to this. there is only so long you can say to people, stay in the house and lock the door, right? they have to go out and do something. and they will. they will come out with warmer weather, and we do have parks and recreation areas. it's not even healthy to stay in the house all the time. but that is going to happen. that activity level is going to increase naturally. when that activity level increases, you can very well see that infection rate spread. infection rate is primarily a function of contact. you touch a surface and then i touch a surface. you cough and the droplets go on me. it's contact. and that's why places like new york city or anywhere you see a

hot spot cluster, new rochelle, it was about contact. people start coming out, they start moving around more, there will be more contact. that contact will increase the virus spread. watch the dial, watch the virus contact spread. you'll see it in the hospitalization rate. to the extent we're doing testing, you'll see it in the testing rate. but remember how thin our margin of error. we were at 1.2, 1.3, 1.4. that's when the virus is outbreak. one person is infecting more than one additional person. when you get the infection rate below 1, theoretically the virus is slowing. we're at .9.

we're at .9 to 1.2. that is a very fine margin of error. i don't know that it's even statistically relevant, frankly, because all of these numbers are a little loose. but that's what we have to watch, and we will. and we have to watch this until we have a medical treatment or we have a vaccine. that's when this is really over. in the meantime, i say again to my local government officials, i'm getting a lot of calls from a lot of supervisors, town elected officials, et cetera. they're under increasing political pressure, and they're wanting to do things. the state rule is now everything is closed and the state rule is they can't take in the action that is contrary to that. because coordination and discipline is now key. beaches, public facilities, schools, parades, concerts, these would all be magnets for

people. i work with our other states because, frankly, if they open up a beach in connecticut, you could see a flow of people from new york going to a beach in connecticut if i don't open our beaches. or if they have a concert in new jersey, people are cooped up here, you could see them get in a car and drive to new jersey to a concert. by the way, you drive to new jersey to concerts, anyway, without covid. i told someone yesterday i ran into a couple in albany who said they were from queens. they are in a car eating from styrofoam trays. they drove up from queens to buy thai food in albany, takeout, because they like the thai food restaurant in albany. i said, you drove from queens to albany to buy thai food.

two, three hours. i said, you know they have thai restaurants in queens. with all due respect to thai restaurants in albany. they're very, very good, but why go three hours. they said, we wanted to take a drive. this restaurant is very, very good. westchester does something, new york city does something, it affects everyone else. that is the reality. so everything is closed unless we say otherwise, and the most important thing -- i just had conversation with a local official -- look, people need government to work. government has to be smart, and if it looks confused between the state and the county or the state and the town, that's the wrong message for everyone. so let's just be smart. on testing and funding, those

are the two areas we're looking to work with our federal partners. testing is going to require everyone to work together. federal and state. state and locals, by the way, we're starting the largest antibody test ever done today. in new york, the largest sample. but this has to be a multilevel government coordinated project because we have to do this on a regular basis. also on the funding issue, this is obviously a unique period in a lot of ways. we did a state budget in a way we've never done it before. since our state didn't have any revenues, the way we did the budget was we basically said it's dependent on what we get from the federal government, and the federal government that promised funding all along, we said whatever we get from the

federal government will determine our state budget, right? because the state has a 10 to 5 $15 billion hold right now. that's never been done before. it basically said, i'll tell you the state budget when i know the state budget, and the state budget is going to be a function of whatever the federal government gives us. the federal government has not funded states to date. the national governors association, bipartisan headed by a chairman, governor hogan, republican. i'm the vice chairman. we have said with one voice, you want the governors to do the job, we need to provide funding for state governments. there is now another piece of legislation they're talking about passing in washington, and again, it doesn't have state and local governments in it.

but if this week we're going to do a state forecast. if they exclude state government again, our state forecast will project, without any federal funds, you can't spend what you can't spend what you don't have if you allocate on a flat basis for a sneeze. you will be cutting schools 20% and local government 20% and hospitals 20%. this is the worst time to do this. federal government says from day one don't worry, we'll provide funding from the states. yes, don't worry. i am worried because i heard this over and over again. my job is very simple. i have one agenda and one purpose. i fight for new yorkers. that's my job.

i don't have any side jobs or any other places to go or people to see. that's all i do. new yorkers need funding for this budget because we can't do it otherwise. washington is saying what? we want to fund small business, great. you should fund small businesses and financial services and large corporations and airlines and hotels. that's all great. fund all those businesses but at the same time don't forget teachers and police officers and firefighters and transit workers and healthcare workers and nursing home staff. those are the people who i fund with the state budgs budget. you should not make us choose between small businesses and large businesses and people who are on the front line doing the

workday in and day out. i would go a step further, i would propose hazard pay forefront line workers. we all say they did a great job, the police and heroes. yes. they are. but you know what thanks is nice but recognition of their efforts and their sacrifice is appropriate. they're the ones that's carrying us through this crisis. this crisis is not over. the equity and fairness of what's happening. i think any reasonable person would say we should right this wrong. 40% of the front line workers are people of color. 57% of the building workers and

40% of healthcare workers. people of color are disproportionately representing delivery services and child care services, right? the economy closed down. the economy did not close down. it closed down for those people who have the luxury of staying at home. all those essential workers who had to get up every morning to put food on the shelves and go to the hospital to provide healthcare under extraordinary circumstances and police officers who had to go out and keep you safe and firefighters who had to go out and fight the fire. those people work and they went out there and expose themselves to the virus. two-thirds are women and one-third comes from low income households. they have been doing this work and stressed and they come home having a two-wager nurse, one of

them is not working and they're living on one salary. after all of that we see the infection rate among african-american as and brown americans higher proportionately than other groups, why? because they were out there exposing themselves. that's why. you can talk about health disparity and etc. when you are home with your doors locked dealing with cabin fever, they're out there dealing with the coronavirus. that's why they are infected. i would say hazard pay give them a 50% bonus. yes, airlines and also front line workers and yes, also we have a need and responsibility to get the assistance we need to

people in low income communities. we have public housing in the public of housing in the city of new york. high concentration of people in one place. many people in the small lobby and many people in elevators and hallways and higher number of people in the apartment, just a higher occupancy. that's where the virus spreads. we'll set up a test program. we'll have testings set up working with local officials and we are doing as a pilot prom to see how it works and if it works well we'll go further with it. we have congressman meeks and

king jefferys and attorney general james and mr. dias who are working with us. we'll bring masks to nisha. that's one mask for every person in public housing and hand sanitizers and etcetera, just so they have the equipment they need to do their work. personal opinion, not a fact. we are withering here. as a general rule what we do determines our future as smart as government is and people are, that's how you shape your future. this is cause and effect on steroids. what we do today will determine

tomorrow. we are not going to read the history books. we make smart decisions, you will see smart outcomes in two weeks. we make bad decisions, you will see bad outcomes in two weeks. so when they say the future is in our hands, the future is really in our hands. we are going to get through this. we can control the beast. the beast will not destroy us. we can destroy the beast. great news. we have a lot of work to do. we have to keep the beast under control. we have a lot of work to do to reopen but we are going to set the bar high and we are going to reimagine and what we reopen will be better than what we have better before. build back better, that's what we are going to do.

we are new york tough. tough is not just tough, tough is smart and tough is discipline and smart is united and smart is loving. questions? >> when will new york release cases at nursing homes like california have done? >> doctor? >> we updated our data this week. as soon as we get the data, we'll get it posted. >> testing is up to the state and not up to the federal government. is the state capable doing the types of testings in order to identify who has the disease but who has had the disease? >> the president is right, the states testing is up to the states which we'll implement the test and lodgistically

coordinate the test. i should make a determination as to what labs participate in testing. we have about 300 labs in new york. it is my job to coordinate those 300 labs. which one should do this or how do i decide what lab works where? they are regulated by the states. these labs. how many labs do i have work in nassau or how many do i have in buffalo? how many tests can i get done in total? how do i allocate those tests? how many antibody tests? how do i allocate the antibody

tests? i think the president is right when he says the states should lead. what the states will run into when you talk to those 300 labs, they buy machines and equipment from national manufactures. those labs can only run as many tests as their national manufactures provide them chemicals or reagents and lab kits. the national manufactures say they have supply chain issues. i would like the government to help on the supply issues. >> is it funding? >> no, this is harder than funding. it is a quagmire. i have said i will buy and i will pay, what do i have to pay to get the tests? the